Effortless
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: Paul's not good at words that aren't an extension of a well-crafted television character. But for Steph? He'll more than try; he'll succeed. - One-shot.


It had felt cold, even for February, before they'd left the house that day. The car ride to New York had felt cold, walking around the city had felt cold, even eating in the restaurant felt cold. It wasn't until that band was wrapped around her finger that Steph truly felt warm.

And boy did she.

"Why do you still look so happy, princess?" Paul grinned brightly at Stephanie as he stood there, clad nothing at all, but holding out another chute of the champagne he'd ordered up to their hotel room. "Couldn't have been that big of a shock, could it? You had to know I was locking you up soon."

"Lock me up?"

"And down," he said as he was doing just that, falling into the bed with a grin. "I even asked your father."

"You did not," she said around the champagne of which she'd more than had her fair share. "Liar."

"Did so." Lying on his back, he reached over for the hand Steph wasn't holding her glass in, but only because she was annoyingly holding it in front of her face, staring with wide eyes at the diamond she'd more than inspected a thousand times that day. When he finally got her eyes, he added, "I'm a real gentleman, babe, if you haven't figured that out yet."

'Must've missed that, these past few years."

"Must've."

"You still didn't do that though."

Shifting so that he could stroke the hand he was holding, Paul insisted, "Went straight into his office and said, 'Vince, I want your daughter's hands,' and he said, 'Of course! Thought you'd never ask,' and that was that."

"Paul."

"Hmmm?"

"Don't start our engagement on lies."

"How do you know I'm lying?"

"Because," she said as she sat the once more empty chute on the nightstand by her side of the bed before turning to face better, "you definitely wouldn't interrupt his work with stupid shit like that."

"Marrying you ain't shit, baby," he said. "Most important thing in the world, who your daughter marries."

"Still," she insisted, "you wouldn't interrupt his work for that."

"Fine." Paul thought for a second. "Maybe I went up to his and Linda's place, right? Knocked on the door and informed the two of them just what my, err, intentions were with you. And Vince, that old bat, he refused me, but Linda set him straight."

"My father at home?" Stephanie snorted. "Even more unbelievable."

That time she got glares. Then, "Fine. You want the truth?"

"I mean, I never asked for it, you just started offering up lies, but if you want to tell me-"

"Since you're dragging it out of me-"

"I don't even think it really happened so-"

"I," Paul began once more, "asked your father out to lunch. Just the two of us. Then I asked him."

"You did not."

"I did so."

"Paul-"

"I did." And his voice wasn't so jokey anymore. "That's really what I did, Steph."

For a moment they both lied there, just staring. Her hand was still held in his and, instead of brushing his thumb across her knuckles again, he ran a finger down the new ring she was now sporting. Steph blushed a bit, for some reason, but her cheeks were pretty prone to turning red around him, and Paul only gazed softly at her, waiting for some kind of verbal response.

After she took her moment to be blissful, he got on.

"It's the 2000s, Paul." Blinking away her enjoyment of the moment, she told him dryly, "It's disrespectful towards a woman to think her father has any say in things."

Gaze turning into a glare then, he took a moment as well before remarking, "Well, maybe I don't wanna respect you."

"Excuse me?"

"No. I won't. What do you think this marriage is gonna be? Huh?" Paul dropped her hand as he sat up then to make faces down at the woman. "Some sort of loving, nurturing affair? Where we both consider the others feelings and emotions? That I'll take into account your needs and desires?"

"I mean-"

"Because you shouldn't think that." That time his stare turned hard. "This isn't a partnership. That ring? Last nice thing I give you other than the wedding. You give to me. Not the other way around. You'll be _my_ wife. And my key to ultimate power and glory."

"Doesn't that mean," Steph asked with a frown, "that you should keep me happy?"

"No." He wagged a fist in her direction. "I keep you in line the only way a hulking monster such as myself knows. And ain't nothing your father can do about it. 'cause you won't tell him, will you? How could you? And pass up on the amazing sons I'mma let you have for me?'

Reaching over, she pushed away his fist, the man falling easily onto his back once more from the minimal effort the woman produced.

"You sure built up quite the story off, what?" Steph raised her eyebrows down at him. "That you and my father had dinner together?"

"It's my job, after all, ain't it?"

"Your job right now is pouring me more champagne."

"You're gonna be sick."

"You're gonna do it."

Of course he was.

Shoving up to do so, he said, "You know, I'mma start pouring bottles of wine and champagne and whatever else half out before I give them to you. So you don't drink the whole thing."

"You could always drink with me."

"One of us should be sober."

"Champagne doesn't get me drunk, Paul," she complained from the bed. "It gets me tipsy."

"Keep telling yourself that, gorgeous." Glancing over his shoulder, he said, "'cause you're already at least that, right now."

"Am not."

"Are so."

"How do you know? Off two glasses? No way."

"I always know when you're drunk." Paul presented her with the glass once more. "Stephie. It's a gift."

"Not very useful."

"You've never been a single male."

"I think I'd need more than be second in line for a wresting company to finagle you into marriage then."

"Stephanie," he scolded. "I'm a man of the new millennium. I'm very open. To anything and everything. Extremely forward thinking."

"Except for when it comes to asking a woman's father for her hand in marriage."

"You can't expect me, a simple working man, to be _that_ new age, now can you?" Falling back into bed, he beamed over at her. "I can only be asked to be open to so much, Stephie."

"Is that so?"

With a nod, he fell silent for a few moment. Then, head titled to the side to watch her, he whispered, "I did it 'cause I thought you'd like it. Steph. Me asking your father. It felt...romantic. Or it would. To you. And I think Vince liked it." Coughing a bit, he added, "And you know, he's kinda my boss."

"Only kinda."

"Gotta keep him happy," he went on. "Figured just springing it on him that, hey, I proposed to his daughter, wouldn't be my best bet."

When this got a massive amount of giggles out of Stephanie, Paul only frowned over at her.

"You," he said, reaching over to poke her in the nose, "have had enough."

"Not nearly."

"Wine at dinner, champagne after getting treated to a great fucking-"

"Was that what it was?"

"Did you not feel like the fucking was great?" Raising his eyebrows at her, he asked, "'cause we can go again. Believe me, we can go again."

"I'm good thanks."

"You know what?"

"Paul, no-"

"I'm takin' my ring back."

"You can't have it!"

"You're gonna give it to me."

And he really had her giggling and laughing then as he was trying (halfheartedly, at least) to snatch the diamond off her finger while she, sure, succeeded in keeping it away from him, but also in tangling herself hopelessly up in the bed sheets. Things only ended when he left her behind and rolled right off the bed, getting to his feet instead.

"You want one more glass, Stephie?"

"No," she sighed, only lying there once she was alone, not feeling nearly as complete. "You're right. I'm good."

Paul went over to the mini fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. He downed at least half of it before coming back to her and holding it up to her lips for her.

"I can drink for myself," she grumbled though she had taken a big gulp "You know."

He hit her over the head with the empty plastic bottle. "I know."

When Steph glared, he only beamed and, slowly, the pair settled back down. Creeping closer, Stephanie wiggled her way free of being tangled before cuddling up to his chest. At this, Paul laughed.

"Getting tired, baby?"

"Just wanna be close."

"You can be as close as you want now. I'm gonna be yours, soon enough."

Closing her eyes, she snuggled deeper before whispering, "Only if I'm yours."

"You've been mine. You were always mine." Paul stared down at her. "I didn't always treat you the best, but fuck, now? I'm serious now. I've been serious."

"You never treated me bad."

"Badly."

"Never." Her hand came up to rest beside her head, pressed against his chest. "You're just rough. I like you rough."

"Rough?"

"Mmmhmm." Humming then, she added, "You treat me better than any other guy I've ever been with."

"You must have been with some real losers then, before me."

"What did you date in your twenties?"

Instead of answering, he only laughed, one hand coming up to rest over hers. As their fingers toyed with each other, he whispered, "That's what you wanna spend tonight talking about?"

"Well, it's like...like..." And she lifted her head up then, blue eyes a bit glassy from drinking, but still able to find his in the dim light of the bedside lamp. "It's like it's over now. You know? That life?"

"Definitely. Been over."

"But for real now." Her finger stilled against his own and he was battling nothing. "Right? Paul? Forever?"

For a moment he sat there, watching her, before his smile returned, softer then. More sincere.

"Forever," he agreed as she grinned, dropping her head as her fingers entangled themselves with his once more.

A blizzard was supposed to blow across the northeast in the next few days, but Steph still felt rather warm that night. She wasn't sure if it was from being proposed to or the alcohol, but she wanted more of it. Snuggling as close to the man as possible, she was determined not to let him slip out of bed again.

"When," she began, cheeks still rosy and the tint having no intention of leaving, "did you know? Is that a better topic?"

"Know? Know what? That I wanted to be with you? Or I was into you? Or that it was forever?"

"Mmmm, all of them?"

His free arm wrapped tighter around her. "It's hard to pinpoint, you know? When I, you know, decided that I wanted to ask you. It came in parts, I guess."

"Parts?"

"It was probably after I got my quad all situated, you know, that I knew I wanted to be with you for a long time. For real. Just you. To be...serious, about us," he explained slowly. "But probably sometimes last year- I don't remember exactly where we were. On west coast? Maybe. It was after our stupid break up on screen, when we'd joke about...about it. Getting… But that night, were we in San Diego? We were in a hotel room after some random show and you were helping me ice my shoulder and try to talk around it. Do you remember?"

"Talk around it?"

"That stupid thing you do," he clarified in a way that got a huff out of her. "Where you won't say what you mean, but want me to say it. Someone you knew was getting married. Someone from high school. And you were asking me about what sorta things I think about, when I think about weddings. And then you'd interject with your own opinions. Then later, when we were laying down, you start talking about actually being married. What life I wanted after I actually got married. And it just hit me. That fuck, I was gonna marry you eventually and what I was saying did matter. I mean, we'd joked about that shit before, but that night it just felt…

"And then you kept going, you know? On and on? Like you do? And somehow you were talking about how you'd want to raise kids, if _we_ ever had them. Us. Instead of us both just separately musing on the subject like we would sometimes. We were talking about us. Not Hunter and Steph having kids or Stephanie have children with someone and Paul having children having kids with someone. We were talking about what it would be like if us, Paul and Steph, had a baby together. And just...it was just so easy. To talk about. With you. Everything always is, but that… It was effortless. Being with you isn't challenge and planning my life with you, our future, wasn't. It shouldn't be. If you're meant to be."

The silence that followed this included him making a face, first at himself for saying this and then at her for not responding. He thought she'd fallen asleep.

"You're so cute."

Until she said that.

"Shuddup."

"When did you know that you were gonna do this though?" she asked then. "That you were really gonna do it?"

"Mmmm, I started looking at rings in November, I think."

"Really?"

"Yeah." He stared down at it then, resting there as her hand laid over his chest. "I thought about doing it on Christmas, but I thought that was too cheesy."

"But...why did you choose Valentines day then?"

"Because after Christmas was over," he recalled, "it came to me that there is no one that eats cheesy shit up better than you."

"It's romantic."

"It's manufactured romance." When she lifted her head to make a face at her, he was quick to add, "but that's okay. Because it makes you happy. That's all matters to me. That's real romance."

Dropping her head back down then, she was silent once more.

"Why I chose now though, back in November was just 'cause...I mean, what am I waiting for?" he asked. "What was I waiting for? Just delaying the inevitable. I want to be married to you. I want to have my children with you. And only. I can't, you know, predict what I gonna want in twenty years, but I know hat I'm serious about you. That I've been serious about you. That it's never felt like this before. And if I'm waiting around for it to get better than this, there's no point. The only way for it to get better is to take the next step. For you to be a part of my family. For me to seriously be a part of yours. For us to start our own family. When you know, you know, and I know that a lot of people say that's not true, but I just they've never know, you know? Like we know. 'cause I know. And I know that you know. "

That was far too many assumptions to make much sense to the inebriated woman he was speaking with, so she stayed silent and let him continue as she tried to unravel just what they apparently knew and who didn't know it.

"And it's not like," he was saying as she was still busy deciphering, "I could wait around for you to ask me."

"Oh gosh, no," she said upon hearing that. "I would never."

"I can picture it. Supreme, rich woman, you know, the type- You are the type. Comes down a staircase to find all these hot, attractive, not nearly as rich, but wanting to be, men all there, on their knees, begging, you know, for her to choose them. And she points one out and goes, 'I want that one,' and her father, who was probably at the top of the staircase nods and-"

"If this is some sort of weird fantasy-"

"Shush. I'm only getting started."

"Enough." Her hand untangled from his as she pressed her palm into his chest. "You were talking about us."

"This could be us."

"No." Her eyes were alight when she lifted her head that time. "Because Daddy would never let me choose you."

"Your daddy let me choose you though." He raised an eyebrow. "Or did you forget that part already?"

"What was that like?" she asked. "Anyways?"

"Mmmmm," he hummed. "I think, at first, he thought I wanted to just hang out with him."

"Gross."

"I know. Imagine his surprise when I didn't want to play around. All business. Well, other business than our usual business.

"What did you tell him?"

"That's personal."

"What?"

With a nod, he said, "Man stuff."

"Paul, you can't-"

"If you had had the guts to ask me to marry you," he mused then, "you and my mother could have discussed whatever you wanted. My father even. And I would have never known. But you forfeited that when you made me do it. So who's fault is that? Stephie?"

"You're making my head hurt."

"Lay it back down," he instructed. "I got more to tell you."

"Like what?"

"Like how when I first saw you, I knew I wanted to fuck you."

"Now you're just being gross."

"No," he said with a bit of a gripe in his tone. "I'm being honest."

"When I did I first meet you? Did we meet before I was eighteen?"

"Shuddup. I'm talking."

When she made a face up at him that time, he only looked to the high ceiling.

"Where was I? Ah, right. Knew I needed to bone that immediately."

"Paul-"

"I'm kidding."

"Be serious."

"I've been that way for too long," he complained. "What more do you want from me?"

"To finish."

"Fine," he said then before clearing his throat. There was a pause as they shifted moods again, in a way only they could. "I didn't immediately fall in love with you or any of that stupid shit."

"I know."

"Don't get me wrong. You were attractive."

"Were?"

"It's different now," he clarified. "When you know someone. You know that."

She knew that.

But she was still gonna make his life a bit of a hassle when he misspoke.

"Anyways," he went on, only once she allowed. "It was probably after we first started working together. I mean, shit, Steph, I don't know, why do you fall for people? There was just something there. Like… I don't even think we would spend that much time together, at first, when we weren't working on something for the show or in the ring, but you were just so...funny to me. Fun, really, is a better word. Don't get me wrong, you were still the boss's fucking annoying kid-"

"Hey-"

"-but there would be moments when you'd say something backstage and I'd just be like, 'Damn, I wanna, you know, spend time with her.' Not in a... _sexual_ way. At first I thought we could just be friends. But that didn't work. I mean, we were still friends. And we are now. But there was something beneath that and I couldn't stop picking at it. Scratching. Until it bled."

"Did...did you just compare to a scab?"

"Our relationship, sure, at first," he agreed with a bit of a shrug. "What would you call it? It was unseemly and wrong and something that we all just wanted to go away. And if I'd left it alone, if you had, then it wouldn't still be here. But we did pick and prod at it. Because we wanted it there. I want you here. Now. I like talking to you. I like hanging out with you. I like the sound of your voice, even when you're yelling at me or getting all shrill-"

"Like you're that much better."

"I'm not," he said. "And that's the point. I'm not any better than you. And you're not any better than me. Because you like it too. Isn't that what you said a few minutes ago? That I'm what? Rough? But you like it. Don't you, baby? You love it. Even when we're fighting, you fucking love it. Just like I do. We're not...alike, in every way, but were we're not, we mesh. You don't eat ketchup on a damn tomato. You eat it on fries."

"You're really doing my head in with these analogies."

"I'm just trying to say that the whole reason I kept at it, kept going back to you, am stuck on you, want to be stuck on for the rest of forever is just what I said before. It was effortless." He didn't smile when he looked down on her then, but for some reason, that made the moment all the more ardent. "Being with you. Every second with you. When other people or things are added, yeah, things can get heavy, but when it's just you and me, like right now, in this room, this fucking day, alone? There's nothing to it. You're the only woman- Person. You're the first and only person I've ever thought I could spend every day in a year with and not need a break from." He still didn't grin, but he didn't look as grim as he said, "If that you don't marry that person, who the fuck are you waiting for?"

They only laid there, the two of them did, for a while. A long while. It wasn't until Steph shifted up to give him a kiss and he turned his head from it that they spoke.

"What?" she complained with a frown. "Paul?"

"Where's mine?"

"Huh?"

"Where's my long thought out monologue? Huh? Where you tell me everything that I mean to you? And get all mushy and shit? I want my turn."

"I tell you that stuff all the time. Like literally, all the time."

She was not wrong.

"I don't listen when you talk."

So he didn't accuse her of being so.

"But you will all of a sudden?"

"I just opened my heart to you, Stephie." He gave her his best vulnerable look. It probably wasn't very good, but then again, it was rarely asked of him. "I'm expecting at least a layer of yours in return. I mean come on. At least one thing. One thing that makes you want to marry me."

Again, they waited. That time though a bit of the pressure was off him as it was for his girlfriend- No, fiancee. He was waiting for her to speak. A rarity, for sure.

"I probably, like, am most attract to, like, your abs? 'cause they're super hot."

Paul couldn't help it. He blinked first, but soon after, he rather loudly exclaimed, "What?"

"What?" Stephanie tired to bury her head in his chest again. "It's true. They're, like, your best feature."

"Stephanie-"

"I like your arms too."

"How drunk are you?"

"I'm drunk on our love."

"No, you're alcohol, you like lightweight," he grumbled as he forced her to flip over then, onto her back, so that he could be the one to fall into her. Burrowing his head into her breasts, he tried not to squash her too much as he lay mostly on the bed and hardly on her at all. "My silly Steph. Silly wife. That's what you'll be. My wife."

Lazily, her hands came up to run through his hair, the ring causing on finger to tangle briefly. As she shoot his hair free of her precious diamond, she only agreed softly, "Your wife."


End file.
